to each other. We have riches of knowledge and insight, of tools both tangible and spiritual, to rise to this calling. We watch our technologies becoming more intelligent, and speculate imaginatively about their potential to become conscious. All the while, we have it in us to become wise. Wisdom leavens intelligence, and ennobled consciousness, and advances evolution itself. We talked with Tippett about her book and how scientific research can help us all understand the ancient roots of wisdom in an age of information. Jenara Nerenberg: There are clearly boundaries and things scientists can’t always touch. But do you see progress in the scientific understanding of wisdom? ... posted on Aug 15 2016 (11,904 reads)

on navigating the open sea of knowledge. For my part in the 2014 Future of Storytelling Summit, I had the pleasure of collaborating with animator Drew Christie — the talent behind that wonderful short film about Mark Twain and the myth of originality — on an animated essay that I wrote and narrated, exploring a subject close to my heart and mind: the question of how we can cultivate true wisdom in the age of information and why great storytellers matter more than ever in helping us make sense of an increasingly complex world. It comes as an organic extension of the seven most important life-learnings from the first seven years of Brain Pickings... posted on Nov 9 2014 (20,057 reads)

on these young geniuses, or instead, turn the judgment into curiosity and actually see if I could match my wise eyes with their fresh eyes. I fancied myself a modern Margaret Mead amongst the millennials, and I quickly learned that I had as much to offer them as they did to me.  The more I've seen and learned about our respective generations, the more I realize that we often don't trust each other enough to actually share our respective wisdom. We may share a border, but we don't necessarily trust each other enough to share that respective wisdom. I believe, looking at the modern workplace, that the trade... posted on Feb 27 2020 (6,906 reads)

fierceness, and power. Here’s my conversation with someone I really respect, Lynne Twist.  I wanted to begin, Lynne, by sharing how it was a couple of years ago that I was at the Wisdom 2.0 event and you and I ran into each other. You said, very nonchalant, “What’s new, Tami? What are you working on?” I said, “Well, we’re partnering with Wisdom 2.0 and LinkedIn to produce a new program called the Inner MBA. It’s an online training on the wisdom skills needed in business today.” You just looked at me and you said, “Count me in. Whatever I can do to help, whatever I can do to support, I’m in.” I thought, first... posted on Mar 12 2022 (2,952 reads)

Simon is the founder and CEO of Sounds True, a multimedia publishing company that Tami founded in 1985 at the age of 22 with the mission of disseminating spiritual wisdom. Today, still faithful to its original mission, Sounds True has grown to have nearly 110 employees and a library of close to 2000 titles featuring some of the leading teachers and visionaries of our time.  Sounds True is a pioneer in the conscious business movement, and Tami leads in a way that values their multiple bottom lines, which include relationship and mission as well as profit.  Tami also hosts Insights at the Edge, a popular weekly podcast where she has interviewed many of today’s... posted on Nov 24 2018 (6,218 reads)

does it mean to live wisely and well and what does it take? How can we cultivate qualities such as love, wisdom, kindness, and compassion?”  Our guest today, Dr. Roger Walsh, addresses these questions. A man with an eclectic past, Roger has explored contemplative life as a professor, physician, therapist, celebrated author, spouse, spiritual practitioner, and inquisitive human being.   He is a former circus acrobat, as well as a record holder in the fields of high diving and trampolining. Roger claims to have no final answers about life and meaning; yet through a combination of spiritual wisdom and practical tools, he offers hope and healing for us all, individually... posted on Jan 17 2019 (6,173 reads)

many dear friends who are part of the extended community here and have been shining lights for me for more than a decade now. Above all, warmest Congratulations to all of you in the Class of 2023. And to the families, friends, ancestors, and loved ones – near and far – who have set in motion and nurtured the ripples that allow us to be here today. It’s customary, I realize, for the person standing here to pretend or at least attempt to share with you stories of wisdom gleaned from a lifetime of experience. It is true that I have both toiled and found tremendous joy and reward in various material realms of our society – from public service, to the globa... posted on May 30 2023 (2,673 reads)

resting, and deeply reflecting. So much that they have offered to the world and received from the world: a circle of reciprocity that we get to step into for this precious time together.We'll touch on a lot more specifics, but I'd like to share this lovely tribute that was offered by a mutual friend of ours, a poet and wise human being, Mark Nepo. Mark said of Mary Ann and Fred's work: “During the middle ages, the monks were the ones who kept literacy alive. And the Brussats are the wisdom-keepers of our age, who are keeping spiritual literacy alive. Through their devotion and diligence, they have created an unprecedented wisdom archive, and, in a very real sense, this is a livin... posted on May 5 2024 (1,077 reads)

to take, but what's more important is that you should want to learn. What's more important is for you to know how to find that information if you need it. What's more important is for you to learn how to problem solve and use that information. But I agree that education needs to change. But the way your question started, which is move beyond the Industrial Age, suggested that we move forward, and a lot of what I see is that we need to look back because I think there was a lot of wisdom of previous generations of the evolutionary past of our species that we're ignoring because we tend to think that we're going to be modern and we can do better than our parents and gran... posted on Dec 6 2014 (26,343 reads)

if your job didn’t control your life? Brazilian CEO Ricardo Semler practices a radical form of corporate democracy, rethinking everything from board meetings to how workers report their vacation days (they don’t have to). It’s a vision that rewards the wisdom of workers, promotes work-life balance — and leads to some deep insight on what work, and life, is really all about. Bonus question: What if schools were like this too? On Mondays and Thursdays, I learn how to die. I call them my terminal days. My wife Fernanda doesn't like the term, but a lot of people in my family died of melanoma cancer and my parents and grandparents had it. And I kept thinking, o... posted on Apr 15 2015 (29,710 reads)

Universe do we live in? Where are we going? Because we are confronting the limits of the Earth’s ecosystem to carry the burden of humanity, we are also confronting our assumptions about the nature of the Universe and our evolutionary journey. Do we continue our rapid march into materialism, grounded in the assumption that we live in a Universe that is indifferent to humanity and comprised mostly of dead matter and empty space? Or do we open to a transforming insight from the combined wisdom of science and the world’s spiritual traditions: The Universe is not dead at its foundations but is profoundly alive and we humans are an integral part of that larger aliveness? In the wo... posted on Apr 30 2018 (15,051 reads)

enough, that we will be happy if we have material goods, that material goods will keep us safe. None of these stories are true. What is true is that what we have is each other. MS. TIPPETT: And again, that's so — it's lovely and it's clearly true, and yet we don't… DR. REMEN: We don't live there. And this is why I see people with cancer and other people who have encountered very difficult experiences in their lives as teachers, teachers of wisdom. It's as if the wisdom to live well is — at the moment, the repository of this wisdom are the sick people in our culture, the ill people in our culture. [music: “Alice”... posted on Jan 15 2019 (13,897 reads)

time of crisis and chaos, the kind that a pandemic brings, is, among other things, a time to call on our ancestors for their deep wisdom. Not just knowledge but true wisdom is needed in a time of death and profound change, for at such times we are beckoned not simply to return to the immediate past, that which we remember fondly as “the normal,” but to reimagine a new future, a renewed humanity, a more just and therefore sustainable culture, and one even filled with joy. Julian of Norwich (1342–ca.1429) is one of those ancestors calling to us today. After all, she lived her entire life during the worst pandemic in European history—the Bubonic plague that killed 4... posted on Nov 13 2020 (10,431 reads)

follows is the syndicated transcript  of an On Being interview bewteen Krista Tippett and Suzanne Simard. You can listen to the audio of the interview here. Krista Tippett, host:She is the forest ecologist who has proven beyond doubt that trees communicate with each other, that a forest is a single organism, “wired,” Suzanne Simard says, “for wisdom” and for what it is hard to call anything other than care. She has shifted her field of science on its axis and was an inspiration for the central character in Richard Powers’s celebrated novel The Overstory. But it’s the understory of a forest that Suzanne Simard brought into the light. M... posted on Jun 1 2022 (3,830 reads)

we love horses or not, whether we have contact with horses or not, they can teach us a lot about wisdom, love, and beauty. How do we get close to an honest openness to the potential magic of horses? And what does it even mean? The horse as a mirror for the soul and a vehicle for the soul could show us our true nature, and carry us into sacred spaces, initiating us into transformational healing and insight. Horses could heal conquest consciousness and help us reindigenize. But, for that to happen, we would have to become initiates. How can we properly seek initiation into the great mystery of life?- Nikos Patedakis Nikos Patedakis himself has practiced m... posted on Oct 19 2022 (3,706 reads)

births as well as deaths. She serves the community as an obstetrician at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, and as a medical director of Hive, a nonprofit organization of the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation that promotes reproductive and sexual wellness and pregnancy support for those living with HIV. In 2013, she underwent a double mastectomy, and a video of her and her surgical team dancing went viral. She went on to found the Foundation for Embodied Medicine to bring this wisdom to patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals. She also teaches embodiment to the Bay Area Young Survivors Group of the Cancer Help Program at Commonweal, co-founded by Michael Lerner, ... posted on Apr 21 2023 (3,591 reads)

the effort to rise above or sink below or to drop all of our designs and simply accept our aliveness and trust it. I struggle with that. Everybody struggles with that. Is that making sense? TS: It is, and it actually reminds me of another quote that I took from the audio program. Really, as I said, you have such beautiful and original language. I really appreciate it Mark, deeply. Here’s the other quote: “Wisdom is the result of faith. Faith is not the result of wisdom.” I thought that was really interesting. MN: Well, thank you. You know, let me speak to the great Protestant theologian Paul Tillich. He defined faith as “an act of ultimate... posted on Dec 10 2016 (25,921 reads)

in a valley within the Green Mountains of Vermont is a place called Odali Utugi—The Sunray Peace Village. Odali Utugi means Hope Mountain. On this beautiful 27-acre site, Sunray Meditation Society has, since 1987, been creating a Peace Village for today’s world, modeled after the Cherokee Peace Villages of the last century. It is a place where people of all ages, walks of life, clans, and nations can experience the healing power of the Earth. Here one can study the wisdom of Native American and Tibetan Buddhist traditions and learn the skills of peacemaking. It is sacred land.  The Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo is Chief of the Green Mountain, Ani Yun Wiwa, and... posted on May 31 2018 (9,341 reads)

Grateful to be asked and curious about what it might be like to work in the land of the Millennials, I said yes, but realized quite quickly that being an elder today – especially in Silicon Valley – is less about reverence and more about relevance. In my five and a half years working with people mostly two generations younger than me, I’ve come to realize that a Modern Elder is both a mentor and an intern. While some of my accumulated knowledge might serve as timeless wisdom, much of it wasn’t relevant to this new home-sharing world. So, I realized I needed to strategically edit my knowledge and evolve my identity and take a beginner’s-mind approach to ... posted on Nov 14 2018 (6,179 reads)

during a period of growing awareness—maybe even awakening—of the broader Australian culture to the richness of our First Nations people’s traditions and voices. Lydia has lived many lives in this one life. She is a Worimi woman, born on Bundjalung country, now living between the Kulin nations and Gubbi Gubbi country. From experiencing trauma in early life to an art-filled, soulful adult life as a mother, producer, executive, singer/songwriter and custodian of ancient wisdom, Lydia is the embodiment of compassionate resilience. Amongst the many things that moved me when we first met was her unique capacity to bridge the trauma that the Indigenous community ... posted on Dec 19 2020 (4,169 reads)